Newsletter

Mamet fan Runnels excited about directing Mamet?s ?Water Engine

'Water Engine' given birth as a radio drama

Charles Lang ( played by Austin Blakely) is the inventor of a water engine in 1934, and speaks with his sister Rita (Katelyn Wilson) about a meeting he has set up with patent attorneys. The scene is from Wayland Baptist University's production of David Mamet's "The Water Engine." The play is being stagedon campus through Saturday.

Runnels

After calling playwright David Mamet “contemporary theatergoers’ new (Anton) Chekhov” — in part “because his plays sound like the way people would really talk” — it is surprising that Marti Runnels, 56, only now is directing his first Mamet production.

Then again, Runnels, dean of the School of Fine Arts and Director of Theater at Wayland Baptist University, first developed a bond with Mamet back when he was at Texas Tech — reading and seeing productions of such plays as “Glengarry Glen Ross,” “American Buffalo” and “Oleanna.”

Runnels is directing a much earlier Mamet play this weekend, “The Water Engine,” explaining that it is far more accessible to contemporary audiences.

Speaking to the other three Mamet plays mentioned. Runnels said, “I just do not think that Wayland Baptist, or Plainview, can endure the sort of urban frankness (i.e., profanity and adult situations) in most Mamet plays.

“In fact, most people I know did not even realize that Mamet had written any family-friendly pieces.”

Not that “The Water Engine” is stripped of tension or violence.

But Runnels makes certain that such scenes, even if heard, are carried out in a basement or a locked room next door.

Even those who have seen “The Water Engine” performed may have a treat in store.

From the time that Mamet’s play was published — as a radio play reformatted for theater in 1977 — those contracting to perform it, and requesting scripts, also are sent copies of Mamet’s short play “Mr. Happiness.”

He had intended that it be acted as accompaniment for “The Water Engine.”

Runnels said that, like most directors preceding him, he had no intention of using “Mr. Happiness.”

He explained that the shorter play is about a radio personality called Mr. Happiness, played in Plainview by Coleman Scroggins, who is the male equivalent of Dear Abby or Ann Landers.

“He reads their letters on the radio,” said Runnels, “and tells them how to solve their problems.

“He’s not racking up money; he just wants to help people.”

The same could be said of Charles Lang.

After all, “The Water Engine" also opened as a radio drama, and Runnels is not the first to blend the radio characters from two plays.

“The Water Engine" opens in 1934 Chicago, when the second World’s Fair returns. According to Runnels, “Combining science with the mystery of human connectiveness” finds Charles (Austin Blakely) a simple person, hardly an inventor, who nevertheless has invented a bona fide engine that runs on distilled water.